Life Is Short
by LibbyLou22
Summary: The lesson that life is short is learned by all. Amy has yet to talk with Ty about the ring and a baffling horse and its owner will push her to make the most of her time with Ty. Meanwhile changes are afoot for Lou and Peter and Jack returns home alone.
1. Chapter 1

So it has been very long since I have posted a story. I will not be finishing Faith. I lost my hard drive with the rest of the story and all of my planning on it. Then I fell ill and I just don't want to try to finish it. It was so near the end but I could not do it...

I did however have one idea for a story that stayed with me. And so with great thanks to TC for Beataing this chapter I present to everyone "Life is short"

*Thanks to TC for proofing this first chapter

** I do not own Heartland otherwise Amy would have had a ring on her finger at the end of season 5... Actually it would have been before that!

***This takes place 3 months after the season Finale. Jack is still in France.  
Lou and Peter are preparing to move. Amy still has not spoken to Ty about the  
ring, and Mallory is still in Nashville.

* * *

The sound of hoof beats rang out as Amy bent down over Dexter's neck urging  
him over the tree. He landed and Amy pointed him toward the next jump. He took  
it in stride and Amy pushed him for home. In a matter of minutes Amy pulled  
him down to walk before they walked through the gate.  
When she reached the barn she dismounted and unsaddled Dexter just as a large  
horse taller clattered down the drive. Amy looked up to see a young woman get  
out of the car.  
"Hi. Are you Amy Fleming?" the brunette asked.  
Amy smiled, "Yeah, how can I help you?"  
The woman smiled warmly. "My name is Jenny Hall. I was told that you are the  
person to talk to about training a horse."  
"Oh, yeah. What can I help you with?" Amy asked as she started to the  
trailer.  
Jenny looked at Amy with a tear in her blue eyes. "My husband… he was a  
horse trainer and he left me this horse, and I am at my wit's end with him."  
Amy sucked in a breath. She knew that this would be an impossibly hard case  
but she had to help. "Yeah, I can try. Tell me what you want me to do for  
him."  
Jenny pursed her lips. "Please, just fix him. He has killed a man; I can't let  
him kill me."

* * *

"And Ty, she asked me to stop her horse from killing her!"  
Ty's eyes widened, "And you offered to help anyway! Amy, this horse sounds  
dangerous. Should you really be working with him?  
Amy rolled her eyes. "Ty, I know what I am doing. Now, are you going to help  
me move him to the round pen or not?"  
"Well, I won't let you get killed alone." Ty opened the gate and the two set  
to work moving the horse with many words still unsaid between them.  
It only took a matter of minutes to move the horse and once he was in the  
round pen, the horse spun around and lunged at the horse in the pen next to  
him.  
Amy watched the horse as he began to pace, teeth bared, ready to pounce. "He  
seems to hate the world," she commented dryly. "He will be fun to work with."

* * *

Peter walked in to the house and waded through the cardboard boxes to the  
kitchen. He smiled at the smell of Lou's dinner concoction. "What smells so  
good?"  
Lou smiled and said: "Food that I did not cook!"  
"Oh, sounds great!" Peter said with a grin, and moved two boxes out of his  
way.  
Amy walked in to the room with Katie. "Isn't it wonderful that we are all safe  
from the poison of Lou's cooking?"  
"Well, tomorrow you will be cooking your own meals and we will see how long it  
takes you to starve." Lou retorted smartly.  
Amy rolled her eyes. "Really? Well, there is this little thing called take-out

* * *

Lou cut her sister off. "Dear, sweet, naive, Amy… you will get sick of  
take-out, not to mention go broke buying it."  
Amy rolled her eyes again. "I suppose this would be a good time to mention  
that I have offers all over Alberta to do clinics. I could have a clinic to do  
every weekend if I wanted! I could be richer than the two of you in a matter  
of months."  
"Amy, that's great. Why are you not excited?" Lou was bubbling over with  
enthusiasm.  
"Because I would spend all my weekends traveling, and I don't want that. I  
don't want to be away from home," Amy sighed and sat down in a kitchen chair.  
Lou nodded. "I can see that. I hated to distribute my time between Heartland  
and Peter when we lived in Dubai. I wanted both."  
Amy nodded, but her mind somewhere else entirely. It was not on her clinics or  
her sister, but Ty.

* * *

"Je tiens à vous dire quoi faire avec votre temps! Tu es completement  
débile!" Lisa slammed the phone on the table. "Con!" she muttered in French.  
She turned to Jack. "No luck. This airline strike has got nearly all the  
flights canceled."  
Jack chuckled. "I can tell."  
Lisa spun into a tizzy, "Jack, we were supposed to fly home two months ago,  
but with this government revolt and the airline strike, there have not been  
but a few flights in and out in the last few days alone. This country is going  
to hell in a hand-basket."  
"Now Lisa-"  
Lisa cut Jack's comment off and continued her rant: "They are burning houses  
of the rich and killing innocent people to make a point! And it's moving south  
every day closer to us. We need to leave as soon as we can. I have spoken to a  
friend of mine and she is trying to get us tickets on the next flight out. But  
I don't know if we will make it out before they burn everything to the ground.  
We could very well be dead in a few days."  
"Now, Lisa," Jack said reasonably, "don't go thinking like that."  
"Jack, don't sit there and say that," Lisa said. "I can see right through you.  
You have the same worries that I do. We are a hundred twenty meters outside  
Paris and Paris was burned days ago. In a few days we need to be prepared to  
leave. I am meeting a Spanish Horse breeder tomorrow to sell all my stock."  
Jack stood up. "Okay," he said, "we had better start early tomorrow."  
Lisa looked at Jack seriously. "I am starting now. I have seen this once  
before and I don't plan to see it again." She grabbed her boots and walked out  
in to the sun, leaving Jack to think a moment before he followed.

* * *

"Okay, 'night Grandpa." Amy hung up the phone as Lou walked in.  
"What did grandpa say? Is he coming home?" Lou crossed her fingers even though  
she knew the answer.  
"No. They can't get flights out. He wished you luck with the move but it was  
cut short. He said they had to get some horses ready for sale." Amy picked up  
Katie and spun her around.  
Lou smiled at the sound of her daughter's giggle. "Peter is trying to pull  
some strings, but doesn't know if the guy can get them tickets or not."  
"Lou, if Lisa has buyers for a few horses it can't be that bad. Besides, they  
are not in Paris. They will be home, and Grandpa will be here for the  
house-warming party in two weeks." Amy smiled convincingly, her mind split  
between her grandfather and Ty.  
It seemed that lately Ty was always a part of her thoughts. Sometimes it was  
the glittering ring she had found, other times it was the fact that she never  
saw Ty, what with him working and spending his spare time at school. But most  
of the time, it was the ring and her words that had discouraged Ty from the  
proposal that would have changed everything.

* * *

Tell me what you think and updates shall come... New chapter in a week or so but only if i receive some reviews...

~Libby


	2. Chapter 2

I apologize for this taking so long to get up… I am not normally a procrastinator but for some reason I did not have any way to write this chapter. I have the story planed out but I am having trouble developing certain story lines to name one, Amy and the Crazy horse. So I finally just scraped it and will re work it in to an upcoming chapter.

I would like to thank all the people that reviewed, favorite story and alerts they mean the world to me and force me to keep writing...

Another thanks to the Wonderful TC for reading and editing my spelling and Grammar because though I am a speaker of English it is not my native language and my spelling and grammar is lacking…

* * *

"Peter; Ty, I changed my mind. The dresser should go over here." Lou pointed  
to a spot against the wall.

Amy stuck her head out of the closet where she was hanging Katie's small  
clothes. "Lou, you and I can move it ourselves later. Let them get the trailer  
unloaded and we can unpack."

Lou thought for a moment. "Okay, fine. Leave it where it is, but don't leave.  
I will need you to move some things around later."

"Lou, leave them alone. If you are nice to them, we can pawn Katie off on them  
tomorrow and shop for a couch, a dining room table, and anything else this  
place needs to look like home." Amy smiled, knowing that she was getting  
herself in to trouble.

Lou smiled back at her sister. "Okay, but we drive to Calgary. I am not buying  
a couch here in Hudson."

"I knew that when I offered, Lou," Amy said, picking up another box marked  
toys.

"Amy, this house had six bedrooms. I think Katie needs a play room. All her  
toys can go in one of the other rooms." Lou pointed to the door.

Amy gestured to the chipped paint on the walls of Katie's room. "Well, every  
room in this house needs to be painted, so I will just set this in the hall."

Lou looked up from where she was putting together Katie's bed. "NO!" she  
exclaimed, "I need to paint that too!"

* * *

"Jack, I just got a call from my friend at the embassy. She got a ticket back  
to Canada tonight." Lisa tried to smile.

Jack looked up. "'A' ticket? As in just one?"

Lisa nodded sadly. "Yes, it's for you."

"What about you? I am not leaving you here." Jack set down the book he was  
reading and stood up.

"Jack, my father was a citizen of France and my mother of England. That makes  
me a citizen of Canada, England, and France. I can take a boat to England  
without a visa then fly out back to Canada. But you would have to apply for a  
visa. I don't have to. So take the plane ticket and go. I will be along a day  
or so later." Lisa held out a slip of paper. "Please." She wiped away a tear  
that threatened.

"Lisa..."

Lisa looked at Jack pleadingly, "Please go. She turned around and grabbed her  
car keys. "The airport is small, and it will take a while to get there. We  
need to leave soon."

Jack nodded. "Okay, call the girls for me while I pack."

Lisa faked a smile. "I will," she said, and glanced at an old picture on her  
desk of her family. It had been taken only a month before her mother had died,  
but the smiling family in the picture was evidently oblivious to the events  
that would soon destroy them. Fires had raged through England and protesters  
had taken to the streets. Lisa had watched as her mother and father had been  
dragged out of the car and beaten for no other reason but that she was there.  
Her mother died and her father had been left to pick up the pieces.

The house in France had been left to rot, and the house in Britain forgotten.  
All the family's money had been poured in to Fairfield and making it in to a  
home.

Lisa looked sadly at the photo and turned away. She had other things to worry  
about.

* * *

Amy and Lou had been shopping for only an hour and they had managed to  
purchase a couch and a dining room table. Now Lou was looking for matching  
chairs that also met her specifications.

"Lou, don't you think we should have just gotten the chairs that were with the  
display table?" Amy asked. "It would have been a thousand times easer." She  
motioned to the display.

"No," Lou replied dismissively. "I don't like those. I want something that is  
'Country' with a Modern twist. If you don't want to look for chairs, Katie  
needs a book shelf and toy chest for her play room." Lou gestured to the  
children's department. "I will let you decorate her play room. You can get the  
paint and whatever else."

Amy looked at Lou. "Okay, but then you are not going in there. It will be a  
surprise. You can't tell me what to do or how to do it. In fact, you can't go  
in the room 'til I finish. I will seal the room."

Lou thought for a moment and then said: "I will even trust you with my credit  
card."

"Okay. I will do the play room, but keep your money. This is my gift to  
Katie." Amy smiled. Almost everything she needed was in the attic at  
Heartland. "I think I will go to a different store though."

Lou looked at her sister in surprise, "You can't-"

Amy cut her off: "You agreed not to interfere." With a smile she said, "'Bye  
Lou."

* * *

Amy brushed the cobwebs off an old, oversized tack trunk as Ty's familiar  
truck pulled down the drive way. The truck pulled to a stop and Ty stepped  
out. "I got your call," he said. "What's up?"

"I am designing Katie's play room and I need help. I want to turn this tack  
trunk in to a toy chest, but it's so big that I want to cut it open in the  
middle so she can walk in and have a divider on each side that forms two  
separate toy boxes," Amy said. "I need help to build a playhouse or something.  
Oh, and there is a book case in the attic that I can't get out... and I also  
need to move this to the Quonset hut."

Ty laughed. "Wow. Any particular reason we have to do all of this today?"

"'Cause I have to start working with the crazy horse tomorrow," Amy explained,  
gesturing to the horse pacing the fence line behind her.

Ty looked at the dusty chest. "Okay, you're lucky I have the day off."

Amy smiled sweetly and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."

* * *

Lisa looked over at Jack sadly. "You have your passport?"

"Yes. Lisa, I got everything I need," Jack said as they pulled in to the small  
airport parking lot.

"Okay, I called the girls. Amy's phone went to voice mail and Lou's was busy.  
I called Peter and he is going to pick you up so you can surprise the girls,"  
Lisa said as she got out of the truck.

Jack chuckled and said, "I can't wait to see their faces.

"I know."

Lisa took Jack's arm as they walked in to the small building. They walked  
through security scanners at the entrance silently.

"Are you sure about this whole thing? I have a bad feeling about leaving you  
here," Jack said worriedly. He sat down on a nearby bench and Lisa did the  
same.

"Jack, I was born here. I will be fine. I only wish you had gotten to see more  
of the country before the protesters turned it in to national news."

Jack chuckled. "Lisa, I can see why you love it here. And I saw two months of  
it before these 'tax the rich not the poor' protests started up."

Lisa looked up. The speakers called for flight 109 to board. She and Jack  
stood up, both dreading the good-bye that they had to bid.

"I'll be along in a few days. Don't worry," she said, more to convince herself  
than Jack.

"Okay," Jack replied, and kissed Lisa. She wrapped her arms around his neck,  
enjoying the kiss while it lasted.

When they broke away, Lisa had tears pooling in her eyes. She impatiently  
blinked them away. "You should go."

Jack nodded and wrapped her in a hug and whispered, "I love you."

"I love you too." Lisa was now only moments away from crying. "Go," she  
whispered. "I will be along in a few days."  
But it would be much longer than a few days before she saw him again.

* * *

Thanks for reading review and I shall update. Feal free to bug me for an update...


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